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  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

imac pro worht upgrade

Steve DiMaggio

Steve DiMaggio

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I have a late 2015, 4 ghz i7, 32 gb ram, AMD Radeon R9 M395 2048 MB, was thinking up grading to imac pro, I use the big g-tech array and shoot cameras in my signature. I am looking for better render times and faster proxy rendering. Is the cost worth the upgrade?

steve
 
Well, not trying to disrespect Chad here, but he didn’t really answer your question. Or at least not directly. A newly configured PC workstation is going to be more powerful than the iMac Pro and you can get more power on your desktop for less money going that route. That said, it’s not an iMac.

The new iMac Pro is a great system, we have three of them in house here. They keep up just fine with other i7 and Xeon workstations using equivalent CPUs. Some people had concerns over the thermals on these systems, but Apple did a great job tuning the hardware and we have had no issues in that regard. The 5K display is the best desktop display there is right now. Now expansion is a problem if you want/ need PCIe slots. If you’re already coming from an iMac I suppose you’re sorted out already in regards to that. You’ll need one of the $50 TB2 to TB3 adapters to use your G-Tech RAID (assuming it’s a Thunderbolt version).

The weak link for the iMac Pro is the GPU. It’s a crippled version of the full PCIe card desktop version of the same GPU, but it’s still a good 15X more powerful than the one in your current iMac. If you go with the 10-core iMac Pro (recommended), you’re obviously getting 6 more cores than you already have and the ability to operate 4 of those cores at 4GHz and two of them up to 4.5GHz via turbo. You also get a bit over 2X the memory throughput and the internal SSD is crazy fast.

Are they worth it? Hard to say and that’s for you to answer. If you don’t care about form factor and can live with the previous generation 5K or 4K displays on the market that are just not quite as good and you want maximum CPU (and especially GPU) power for your money, regardless of OS, the iMac is not the answer. If you want a solid all-in-one that’s proving to be a daily workhorse and worthy upgrade atop the iMac lineup, then this is it. Like I said, we have three of them. Two 10-core and one 14-core. They work great for the purposes we bought them for. The 14-core has become my primary daily driver workstation... In actuality the 10-core units outperform it on everything but distributed rendering tasks in Modo, Maya, Lightwave, etc.. I love this computer, but for serious work in Resolve or Nuke, I’m still going to go for one of my bigger workstations. Not so much for CPU as they’re mostly older generation dual Xeons, but they have superior GPU power to crunch through layered R3Ds.

...Maybe go demo one at your local Apple Store? Bring some of your stuff with you to test. If your local Apple Store has a business sales contact, they can usually accommodate you and help you do more than just walk in and play with the included apps. FCPX screams on these systems. Resolve is not shabby either, but the GPU is the bottleneck there.
 
Jeff Kilgroe said:
Well, not trying to disrespect Chad here, but he didn’t really answer your question. Or at least not directly. A newly configured PC workstation is going to be more powerful than the iMac Pro and you can get more power on your desktop for less money going that route. That said, it’s not an iMac.

The new iMac Pro is a great system, we have three of them in house here. They keep up just fine with other i7 and Xeon workstations using equivalent CPUs. Some people had concerns over the thermals on these systems, but Apple did a great job tuning the hardware and we have had no issues in that regard. The 5K display is the best desktop display there is right now. Now expansion is a problem if you want/ need PCIe slots. If you’re already coming from an iMac I suppose you’re sorted out already in regards to that. You’ll need one of the $50 TB2 to TB3 adapters to use your G-Tech RAID (assuming it’s a Thunderbolt version).

The weak link for the iMac Pro is the GPU. It’s a crippled version of the full PCIe card desktop version of the same GPU, but it’s still a good 15X more powerful than the one in your current iMac. If you go with the 10-core iMac Pro (recommended), you’re obviously getting 6 more cores than you already have and the ability to operate 4 of those cores at 4GHz and two of them up to 4.5GHz via turbo. You also get a bit over 2X the memory throughput and the internal SSD is crazy fast.

Are they worth it? Hard to say and that’s for you to answer. If you don’t care about form factor and can live with the previous generation 5K or 4K displays on the market that are just not quite as good and you want maximum CPU (and especially GPU) power for your money, regardless of OS, the iMac is not the answer. If you want a solid all-in-one that’s proving to be a daily workhorse and worthy upgrade atop the iMac lineup, then this is it. Like I said, we have three of them. Two 10-core and one 14-core. They work great for the purposes we bought them for. The 14-core has become my primary daily driver workstation... In actuality the 10-core units outperform it on everything but distributed rendering tasks in Modo, Maya, Lightwave, etc.. I love this computer, but for serious work in Resolve or Nuke, I’m still going to go for one of my bigger workstations. Not so much for CPU as they’re mostly older generation dual Xeons, but they have superior GPU power to crunch through layered R3Ds.

...Maybe go demo one at your local Apple Store? Bring some of your stuff with you to test. If your local Apple Store has a business sales contact, they can usually accommodate you and help you do more than just walk in and play with the included apps. FCPX screams on these systems. Resolve is not shabby either, but the GPU is the bottleneck there.
Click to expand...

Thanks Jeff I have this config
https://www.g-technology.com/products/desktop/g-speed-shuttle-xl-tb3-ev-series-bay-adapter#0G05937

I Shoot usually 80 weddings a yearand turn all of them around with in 3 days, normally about an hour to hour and half full film and short trailer, what I am looking for is not needing to render proxies overnight or, like right now I am rendering a full film so I can't edit anything else, maybe best solution is use one workstation for rendering and compressing and using the imac pro exclusively for the proxy and edit?

Really I just want another day off work lol, the rendering is my bottle neck, I was looking at the 8 core

https://www.bestbuy.com/site/apple-...lid-state-drive-black/5999003.p?skuId=5999003

steve
 
no worries Jeff. I made a quick response which wouldn't necessarily apply to everyone and seeing that Steve is on fcpx then ya staying with apple may be the way to go. Totally agree on your points. I'll add..wait till after WWDC to see if apple makes any statements or dates regarding the mac pro. Personally i'd still suggest you just jump ship to windows :yesnod:
 
Chad Lancaster said:
no worries Jeff. I made a quick response which wouldn't necessarily apply to everyone and seeing that Steve is on fcpx then ya staying with apple may be the way to go. Totally agree on your points. I'll add..wait till after WWDC to see if apple makes any statements or dates regarding the mac pro. Personally i'd still suggest you just jump ship to windows :yesnod:
Click to expand...

the only windows I'm interested in are tinted and attached to a e300 lol! I am one of the few that love FCPX, Yeah I am thinking mac pro is the right thing to wait for, especially since this isn't a "need"

steve
 
Thanks Jeff, it was a lot of good info as im thinking on getting a mac workstation. It has just been to much problems with my pc workstation compaired to my previos mac pro (But alot of the problems can be related to the adobe).So it would be good to have booth platforms. Great to here that the 10core is the way to go since its gets to pricy after that. But I hope we do se a true mac pro this gear.
 
I have a 10 core 64gb, 2 t drive ....I use a Pegasus Raid and keep 1.5 internal scratch. It’s better than my other 5k iMac or custom Window 10 box. However, my work is made in at most 1 minute files. Faster than my old ashcan MacPro....
 
Steve how do you turn around a 1-1.5 hour film in three days? Curious to know your workflow and team setup. I'd also love to see a piece if it's available!
 
Chad Lancaster said:
no worries Jeff. I made a quick response which wouldn't necessarily apply to everyone and seeing that Steve is on fcpx then ya staying with apple may be the way to go. Totally agree on your points. I'll add..wait till after WWDC to see if apple makes any statements or dates regarding the mac pro. Personally i'd still suggest you just jump ship to windows :yesnod:
Click to expand...

Any news from WWDC?, I followed computex and they showed a 32 core Threadripper.
When you want speed, jump on the standard hardware wagon with Linux or Windows, when you want a stylish exterior of your computer, you know where to go...
 
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